Interlude Before The Angels
by Haiza Tyri
Summary: Reese and Finch are given a minor errand to do for the Doctor and become part of life-changing events. Spoilers. A sequel to my "Close Encounters of the Tenth Kind" and continues with "Old Spies, or Mr. Finch Goes To Tea" and "Four Times Reese Wished River Hadn't Come, and One He Wished She Had."
1. Today: Reese

_Today. Reese._

"Come on, Finch, it's got to be here somewhere."

"She, Mr. Reese. _She_ will be there somewhere, sometime. Be patient."

"I'll be sure to give her your love," Reese smirked. "Your undying devotion. If we ever find her."

"John, despite this very clever program, which I wish I had written, my computers are not designed to detect…" He trailed off.

"I thought you said you had satellites, Harold."

"Go west, Mr. Reese! Go now. You'll just catch her."

Reese took off at an easy lope down the Central Park paths. It was the most beautiful morning he had seen in a long time, and he might have looked like any other jogger, except that other joggers didn't wear suits and run with the lean grace of a panther.

He went west, and in not many moments he heard it, a sound that made him break out into a grin. "Found her, Harold."

There was a whirling in the air and in the leaves of the trees, and then there was something that had not been there before, a tall blue box. When the door opened and a young man with a long nose stuck said nose out, he nearly bumped said nose into the very fine jacket of the very nice suit worn by the tall, dark, handsome, and oddly dangerous-looking man who was standing there with his arms crossed and a grin on his face.

For a moment they stared at each other, the young man with a look of bewildered caution on his rather ordinary face and the tall man with an intense examination. _Not_ the Doctor, Reese decided. Wrong eyes. Intriguing eyes for the face, though. This boy had seen more than most.

"Is he in?" he asked softly, with that underlying sardonic edge that marked most of his conversations with Finch.

The young man poked his nose back inside. "Er, Doctor? There's someone to see you."

"Doctor, are you making house calls now?" a female voice called. Not Martha's. Scottish. The door jerked open. A tall girl with red hair pushed the boy aside. "Out of the way, stupid." She stared at Reese. "Well, what do we have here?" Her smile said, _I find you terribly attractive._ She was terribly attractive. Also not the Doctor. "Oi, Doctor! Your friend has come to play!"

"How do you know I'm his friend?"

"You _look_ like his friend. You've got a stupid grin, not a pale face and wide eyes. You've met the Doctor before. You look like everybody else who's ever met the Doctor and has been waiting for him to come back."

"I take it you know something about waiting."

"Yes, I do. Like right now. _Doctor!"_

A young man burst out of the TARDIS. Ah, yes, that was the Doctor. Not the same Doctor, but no one could ever mistake him for anything but the Doctor. Tall, oddly-clothed, untidy hair, long, odd, eager face, younger than ever, very boyish-looking—but the eyes. Never would Reese miss those eyes. Older than ever, sadder than ever, more joyous than ever.

_"John!"_ He leapt forward and tackled Reese, who gingerly patted his back and felt an amused sympathy for Finch.

"Hello, Doctor."

"You know me this time?"

"Of course I do."

"How's Harold? Brilliant little Harold—how is he?"

"Harold's fine, Doctor. He's at the library. He says hi. Sends the TARDIS his love. Sometimes I've caught him daydreaming about her."

The Doctor laughed.

"I heard that, Mr. Reese," Finch said with disapproval in his voice. "I do _not_ daydream."

"Oh, yes, you do."

"Do what?" the girl asked.

"Daydream," Reese said. "Harold. He daydreams about the TARDIS."

"Is he your son?"

He laughed aloud. "Hardly. Why don't you come meet him? Doctor?"

"We haven't even met you yet," the young man said with an accusatory look at the Doctor.

The ever-younger Doctor slapped him on the back. "Mrs. and Mr. Amelia Pond, meet John Reese. Ex-CIA agent, protector of the weak, defender of the innocent. Not his real name, of course. That's a secret."

"I've never told you my real name."

"Oh, but you have. In the future, which is my past. Reminds me of someone. Ask no questions. Spoilers!" He spun around. "John, meet Amy and Rory Pond."

"Williams!" Rory said, with a resigned indignation.

"Pond. Why are you here, John?"

Reese put on a hurt look. "To see you. We heard you were coming to town and thought we'd say hi."

"Hi. Is that all?" The Doctor gave him a hard stare, rather like he remembered his grandmother doing when she knew he was lying.

"Yes, that's all."

"Heard? Heard how?"

"You know Harold."

"Yes, I do. Right. To the library it is. Come along, Ponds!"

"But I wanted to see New York!" Amy protested.

"You will! Harold first, then New York."

Rory raised his shoulders and went in. Amy linked her arm in Reese's. She was nearly as tall as he was.

"A library? Anything spooky going on?" she said with relish.

"Only Harold," Reese said with a straight face.

"So who's Harold?" she asked confidentially, drawing him inside.

"My partner in crime-prevention," he answered distractedly, staring at the inside of the TARDIS. She was different. Glass floor, bright orange and green, the organic look gone. "Does she change when the Doctor does?"

"I don't know. They've both been this way my whole life. Is Harold a CIA agent like you? I've never met a CIA agent. Only FBI, Secret Service, and the President. Nixon. And Winston Churchill."

He stared at her. "Winston Churchill?"

Rory waved his hand around. "Time machine."

"Right. And no, Harold is absolutely not CIA. No one could be less CIA."

"Thank you, Mr. Reese," Finch said in his ear.

"Harold, didn't anyone ever teach you it's not polite to eavesdrop on other people's conversations?"

"Yes, they did, John."

_"How_ are you talking to him?"

"Something in his ear, obviously," Rory said.

Amy made a face at him. "Rory Williams, the only person ever to walk into the TARDIS and _not_ say, 'It's bigger on the inside.'"

_"I_ didn't say that."

"No, but you thought it, didn't you, Mr. CIA Agent?"

Well, he had. "Who are you two?"

Amy smirked. "We're the Doctor's parents-in-law."

He just looked at her.

"No, it's true," Rory said. "He married our daughter. Who's older than we are and grew up with us—it's complicated."

_Talk about it._ "Is she here?"

"No, I think she's in prison. Is she still in prison, Amy?"

"As far as I know. She doesn't really mention it when she visits."

Reese's head was whirling, and so was the TARDIS.


	2. Last week: Reese

_Last week. Reese._

"Hello, River."

"Hello, John."

"It's been a while."

"It certainly has." The extraordinary British archaeologist named River Song smiled at Reese. "What was it, eight years?"

"No, eight years ago was Srebrenica. Don't you remember New York, four years ago?"

"Oh, of course. Srebrenica? Where's that?"

"Bosnia, River, remember?"

"Ah...of course." She looked like she was lying. "I can't stay long. They want me back in my cell." It had been a long-standing jocularity between them, that she had to leave because she had to go back to prison. He didn't know how she always managed to turn up in the middle of some sticky situation he was in, but she did, and he had a feeling that the way he'd felt about her when he was still CIA was the way Carter felt about him. She'd always been dragging him into _something_ weird. And by _always_ he meant it seemed always, but they hadn't actually met above five times or so.

This time she'd actually just called him on the phone. Of course how she'd got his phone number…

"I want you to do something for me, John."

"Of course you do."

"Nothing like before. This is a simple thing. I was supposed to do it myself, only…I can't. I—I don't think I could bear to, after all."

He looked into her face. A smiling, lovely face made for mischief and snarkiness, not for a sudden sheen of tears in the eyes. She slid a book across the restaurant table to him.

"I want you to give this to the Doctor."

He straightened suddenly. "The _Doctor?"_

"Yes, the Doctor. The crazy man with the blue box you met recently."

"River—you _know_ the Doctor?"

"Of course I do. I told you that once. How do you think I knew about you?"

"I—but I only met him four months ago."

"John, he's a time traveler, and so am I."

He sat back in his chair and stared at her. "That's why you don't remember Srebrenica. You haven't been there yet."

"Don't say anything else, John. Spoilers."

He shook his head and took a swallow of coffee. "Time travelers."

She raised her shoulders. "You get used to it. Anyway, the Doctor's coming here some time next week. I don't know the exact day. All you have to do is give him this book."

He picked it up. Cheap paperback, self-published, looked like, picture of a woman with curly blond hair, a wide-brimmed hat shading her face, a trench coat, a smoking pistol, red lips, and far too much cleavage on the front. "Looks like you."

"Does it?" she said vaguely. Her hand shot across the table and stopped his as he started to open it. "Don't read it! You can't read it."

"So you want me to walk around carrying this book for the next week, looking for the TARDIS, and go up to the Doctor and say, 'Here, River left this book for you'?"

"No, no—absolutely not. He can't know where it came from. You have to slip it into his jacket pocket without his knowing."

"Why?"

"Because that's what happened."

"It's already happened?"

"For me. Not for you, and not for him."

"Then how did you—? Time travel. Never mind. Why this book? It looks like cheap pulp fiction, self-published. I can just see the look on Finch's face if he saw it!"

"Hey, my mother published that book! And speaking of Harold, give this to him." She slid a thumb drive across the table.

"That looks like—"

"Same one. This will help him find the TARDIS when she's on her way here."

"How do you know about Finch?"

She only raised a shapely eyebrow.

"The Doctor, right. What's this about, River?"

"I'll tell you afterward."

"What, you're going to call me again? I switch phone numbers almost daily."

"You'll find me." She slid out of the booth, leaned down, and kissed his cheek. "Thank you, John."


	3. Today: Finch

_Today. Finch._

This time Finch did not ask after Martha. He'd learned his lesson last time. He only let this even more enthusiastic Doctor hug him, again. The first Doctor had never hugged him. But when he touched the TARDIS, she seemed to hug him too, with a golden light in his mind that was rather less painful than the young Doctor's enthusiasm. He stuck his nose inside and found she was almost as different as the Doctor, but still the TARDIS, as he was still the Doctor, despite a new look and a very, very different manner.

He missed Martha, but he knew why she wasn't there, and the Doctor seemed to like his two new Companions. He seemed to be closer to them than he had been to Martha, like family rather than friends. The girl with the red hair wandered around looking at and touching everything and keeping up a running commentary, and her intelligent-looking young husband read the titles of books to himself and kept glancing over at Finch, Reese, and the chattering Doctor.

"Only four months? I think it's been _two centuries_ for me. Didn't we have fun? How's the shoulder, then?"

"As promised, it was as good as…new, within a week. Very impressive, for a gunshot wound, Mr. Reese tells me."

"You were shot, Mr. Finch?" Rory came over to them. After a certain amount of squabbling over names, he had insisted Finch call him Rory, and his wife had given Finch a bright-eyed smile and said, "_You_ can call me Amelia," like one conferring a special boon. Since he didn't know whether to call them Mr. and Mrs. Williams or Pond, he did. But he did not offer to let them call him Harold. "Sorry, don't mean to be nosy. It's just I'm a nurse, in between mad bouts of adventuring and getting killed."

"You've only died like seven times, idiot!" Amelia called.

"And that's more times than anyone in this room," he said, "including the Doctor, who only regenerates."

_"Only?"_ the Doctor said indignantly. "Still, I think there must be some unalterable law of the universe that says you can't ever die permanently, Rory."

"That's fine with me," Amelia said, wandering over to them and putting her long hand on Rory's head. She called him names and adored him. He seemed to go still and lost in wonderment whenever she came near him. Finch wondered if Martha had ever found someone like that, if Susan had. He remembered feeling that way about Grace. Why should a beautiful, vivacious, red-haired woman choose to love such an odd, quiet, plain man? He knew Rory wondered that, as he had often. He hoped Rory would never find out what it was like to lose her but that he would live to a ripe old age with her. _If I can't have that, at least maybe you can._

At Amelia's insistence, Reese consented to conduct a tour of the library. "I love old buildings," she said. "Was it always a library?"

"I believe at one point it housed a publishing house," Finch told her. "Primarily a library, however, and I'm certain it is not as old as some buildings you have seen."

"No, but it's beautiful."

"And the TARDIS likes it too," the Doctor said.

Finch didn't go on the tour. He had just received the telltale signal of another number for him to interpret. He sat down to his work, occasionally glancing over at the blue time machine, even getting up to go touch her. He had forgiven her for blowing all the papers on his desk into utter chaos.

Only a moment later, Rory came back. "I just have to ask you something, Mr. Finch. It's just—you kept looking so familiar, and I couldn't figure it out until just a minute ago. Do you have any relatives in England?"

Finch eyed him warily. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, it's just—my dad had this old friend—I think they worked together years ago. He lived just outside Cirencester most of my life—I'm from a village called Leadworth, just about halfway between Cirencester and Gloucester, so we used to see him occasionally. He kept bees and wrote papers about German literature, but I got the impression that he used to be a spy. Odd thing to think, because he didn't _look_ like a spy, but that would be an asset, I'd think, if you were one. No one would ever believe you were. Mr. Reese _looks_ like one."

Finch smiled slightly. It was true. "You speak in the past tense."

"Oh, he was really old, and he died—oh, about ten years ago, I should think. Maybe more. I was at nursing school, but I came back for his funeral. George Smiley, his name was. Only he looked _so much_ like you. Could be a coincidence, but I thought I'd ask."

"George Smiley," Finch repeated softly. "I believe I may have had a distant relative of that name." He gripped his hands together under the edge of his desk.

"That's so weird. It really is a small world."

"So it is. What did your father do when they worked together?"

"Well, he wasn't a spy! No one's less like a spy than my dad!" He jerked to a halt. "Well—"

Finch tilted his head. "You were saying?"

"I only meant my dad worked in some government building under him once, before I was born. My dad's one of those kinds of men who doesn't do anything exciting ever. Nicest man in the world, but you wouldn't ever really _look_ at him—" He stopped abruptly again. "So was Mr. Smiley," he whispered.

"Two men of similar appearance need not have the same job," Finch said. "You say I resemble your Mr. Smiley, but I'm a computer programmer, not a spy."

"No? What is it exactly that you do, Mr. Finch? According to the Doctor, you're the brains of an operation that occupies a former CIA agent."

"Guilty."

"First thing I'm doing when I get home is asking my dad if he was a spy."

Finch smiled at him. "He'll say of course he wasn't, and don't be ridiculous."

Rory laughed. "That's exactly what he'll say."

When Reese, the Doctor, and Amelia returned, Finch told Reese regretfully, "We have a new number, Mr. Reese."

"Oh, good," the Doctor said, dropping his armful of books. "An actual human this time? We'll help. We can fix the problem, can't we?"

Rory was picking up the books. "No, Doctor. You promised Amy a picnic in Central Park and a tour of the city, and Mr. Finch and Mr. Reese have an actual investigation to conduct without you complicating it."

Reese grinned slightly. "That's actually true."

The Doctor sighed. "I suppose."

"What are all the books for?" Rory demanded.

"You have to have something to _read_ on a picnic!"

"Well, you're not supposed to steal them from a library."

"It's a library! I'm checking them out!"

"It's Mr. Finch's personal library!"

"You know, for the first time I actually believe you're his father-in-law," Reese smirked.

"Well, let's go, then," the Doctor said mournfully. He leaned down from his height and hugged Finch again. "Goodbye, Harold. Don't hesitate to call if you ever need help."

"I will," Finch said softly, then mentally chastised himself for his ambiguous grammar. Amelia was leaning down and kissing his cheek. Far too many beautiful young ladies were inclined to kiss him. Clearly he wasn't reclusive enough.

Rory shook his hand (no kissing from _him,_ thank goodness), and while he did, Finch saw the Doctor hugging Reese and Reese slipping the horrid paperback into the Doctor's jacket pocket. Amelia told Reese, "Don't hesitate to come rescue us any time you want, Mr. CIA Agent."

"Don't think I won't," he said.

"And you have a standing invitation to come meet my dad in Leadworth, Mr. Finch," Rory said.

"Thank you, Rory." Finch purposefully made no definite accepting noises. He touched the side of the TARDIS and said goodbye to her in his mind. He wondered if he would ever see her again, or the Doctor. Reese's friend had given him a program to track the TARDIS any time she was headed for New York City. He wondered if he would see Rory and Amelia again. Maybe next time it would be a later Doctor yet again, or even an earlier one. If there was a next time.

Later the same day, when the program from River Song detected the TARDIS leaving New York, coming back, leaving again, and coming back again, he was away from his computer doing research at a morgue on their Irrelevant and didn't see it.

* * *

**Author's note: This chapter constitutes a three-way crossover and also a second sequel, to my story "Finch's People" ( www . fanfiction s/8386588/1/Finch-s-People"). You'll have to read it to find out precisely what relationship Harold Finch had to the old British spymaster George Smiley.**

**It was sheer fortuitousness that set Leadworth very close to the Cotswolds, where Smiley once expressed a desire to retire.  
**


	4. Tomorrow: Finch

_Tomorrow. Finch._

"Finch, I think you need to come down to the cemetery."

"Did you find Henry Walters' grave, Mr. Reese?" He was already limping down to the garage. He'd learned that when Reese asked for help, he needed to go.

"Yes, and my guess is that if we dig it up, we'll find no body. But that's not the important thing right now."

"What is? Are you in danger, John?"

"No, I'm not. You'll see when you get here."

He hurried. He found John in the old graveyard with a woman, tall, strong, beautiful, vivid.

"Finch, this is River Song. She's a time traveler too. River, my friend Harold Finch."

They made appropriate being-introduced noises. Then Reese said, "Here's what I wanted you to see, Harold." He pointed at the simple, unadorned gravestone before them.

**In loving memory**  
**Rory Arthur Williams**  
**Aged 82**

**And his loving wife**  
**Amelia Williams**  
**Aged 87**

Finch put out a suddenly trembling hand and touched it. "What happened?"

"They were sent back in time, where the Doctor couldn't get to them. They lived out their lives here, in New York City," Professor Song said with a tremble in her voice and tears in her eyes. "I come here every year, the day after."

"Were they together?" Finch asked.

"Yes. That was what Amy wanted."

"Rory too," he said, earning a puzzled glance from her eyes. "You're their daughter, aren't you?"

"How did you know?"

"Deduction."

"_You_ married the Doctor?" Reese groaned. "Why does that not surprise me? So she published this book?"

"I wrote it, she published it. It told us what to do when the Angels took Manhattan. But not what to do when they sent my parents back in time."

"What does that even mean?"

While Reese and River squabbled like siblings, Finch was looking up historical records for his library on his smartphone. He held it out. "Mr. Reese."

Reese took it. "What's this? Blue Box Publishing Company, CEO Amelia Williams—?"

"That's my library, Mr. Reese. She liked old buildings, and she liked my library, so she bought it, or built it, and eventually donated it to the city for a library."

Professor Song stared at them. "I think I'm going to have to see your library, Harold. But how do you know about all this? You weren't there. How do you know about the book?"

Reese raised his eyebrows at her. "River, you gave it to me, remember?"

"What are you talking about?" She pulled it out of her pocket. "I have it here. I just got it hot off the press, to give to the Doctor. Not really looking forward to that."

Finch was already pulling a card out of his card case and scrawling Reese's last-week phone number on it. "This is John's number. Give him a call."

"I already have, haven't I?"

He smiled at her. "Spoilers, Professor Song."

_The End._


End file.
